The New Zealand arm of Sky Sports got a rebrand recently, with a new logo, and some new idents. Designed by Brandspank, the new look is intended to capture those milliseconds of sporting greatness “when something spectacular occurs in sport that jolts us typically laid back Kiwis out of our seats and cause us to show our passion”.

BBC Three relaunched its whole brand last month, and these are a selection of the old-look idents, including the first video above, which is the “blobs” final adieu just before the new look arrived.

These Aardman inspired spots have been on-air since the networks launch in 2003, and while I’m not often a fan of purely CGI idents, as they often create stale nothingness, these are quite an exceptional concept, often funny and beautifully executed.

BBC Three is the network responsible for bringing Little Britain to television, along with the short lived but awesome architecture series Dreamspaces.

It’s just been reported that the Australian mockumentary Summer Heights High has been sold for international broadcast to BBC Three in the UK, and none other than HBO in the United States.

Chris Lilley won a Rose d’Or for his previous show, We Can Be Heroes, and will no doubt garner even greater attention with these new distribution deals. And while various other Australian productions have made their way onto American television, this will certainly be one of the most high profile.

While its very much early days for multichanneling in Australia, the real fun should begin January 1st next year when the networks get the chance to start broadcasting additional SD channels, and finally fulfilling the promise of digital television by hopefully embracing UK style multichanneling… e7, TenTwo, 9b etc.

TV ONE is part of New Zealand’s largest free to air broadcaster TVNZ, which among other channels includes the previously mentioned TV2.

The first video is a 90 second brand spot for the network, while the second video is a 2008 season promo, both videos heavily feature Evermore’s track Light Surrounding You. The third video is a timelapse ident for the channel, and the last video is a promo for its netball coverage feature the song Dream Catch Me by Newton Faulkner.

Top Gear again shows its amazing range and breadth in this comedy of errors, I can’t think of another show scripted or otherwise that so seamlessly switches one episode to another between comedy, drama, slapstick, visual beauty and adventure the way this show does.

I’ve said it before, but I love the one-off formats and genre transcending content that comes out of British television in the name of charity, its not always great, but at least its kinda fun and inventive (just like that Killers mash up).

I first gushed all over these ‘audio reactive’ idents back in December last year, and that was when I’d only seen three of them. Now I’m happy to present the whole collection, along with a making-of video. And while my absolute favourite of the bunch remains the “lamp store” spot, some of the new inclusions such as “welding” and “power lines” are just as excellent.

And while the concept for these idents continue to blow me away, I think the more successful spots tend to be the ones that have the voice altering the environment in a more natural and realistic way. For example the “car park” ident doesn’t have the same impact when the visual reaction to the voice is quite so surreal. And as for the “ice cream truck” spot, I’ve been told its used during children’s programming, which makes sense, because compared to the rest its straight out bizarre.

The ABC made some big announcements about its digital future today, including the launch of an iPlayer-esque service called ABC Playback, a for-pay download store, and the groundwork for the long anticipated 24 hour news channel.

And while theres plenty of time to talk about the need for platform agnosticism and critique the interface and branding, the one thing that is entirely clear is that the national broadcaster is leading the way among Australian broadcasters, and further demonstrating its relevance during this digital revolution.

Read all the details here or check out some of the action in the video above.